Atkins Diet Program

Helping You Lose Weight With Low

What is the Atkins Diet Program?
Atkins Diet Program is a low carbohydrate diet, which was suggested by Dr Atkins as a means of promoting weight loss. He suggested that weight loss through dieting can be optimized not only by decreasing caloric intake, but also by manipulating the body’s metabolism to trigger fat burning process.  This breakthrough weight loss concept of fat metabolization was first discover 40 years ago.

What is the basis for atkins diet program?
The basis of atkins diet program stems from the idea that foods which contain carbohydrates, (e.g. rice, bread, pasta, sugar) promote insulin secretion and hence energy storage and the storage of fat. Conversely, low carbohydrate diets avoid high insulin levels and encourage the body to burn fat stores. 

What does the diet involve?
The Atkins diet program is divided into three phases.

Phase I – Carbohydrate is restricted to less than 20 g per day (about one banana). They are allowed to eat fats, meats, eggs and small amounts of salad. All carbohydrate containing food including fruit and milk, should be avoided. Vitamin supplements are encouraged.

Phase II – Slightly more carbohydrate is permitted to encourage a gradual ongoing weight loss.

Phase III – When the ideal weight is achieved, carbohydrate intake can be increased until the weight stabilises. Ideally, this should not exceed 90 g per day.

Does it work?
Many people claim to have dramatic weight loss on the Atkins diet program. Formal studies comparing it to more traditional diets are limited. Two research papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2008) suggested that very obese people on the Atkins diet program did indeed lose more weight over a six month period than those on a conventional diet.

Are there any concerns about the Atkins diet?
The Atkins diet is very controversial. It flies in the face of established views, which consider that a healthy diet should consist of about one third fruit and vegetables (five portions a day), one third carbohydrates (bread, cereals, rice, pasta, potatoes), one sixth meats and fish and one sixth milk and dairy products.

Many dieticians are concerned that low carbohydrate diets are too restrictive and that these diets place people at risk of vitamin deficiencies as well as heart disease due to the high content of fat.

Recently there have been multiple health scares about the Atkins diet program with reports of dangerously low blood minerals and irregular heart rhythms occurring in those on the diet. Again, these reports are anecdotal only – there are plenty of people on the Atkins diet program who have not had these problems. Until there is more formal research, it would be impossible to know if such health problems are made more common by the diet, or if the case reports are just coincidental.

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